Interaction of matter-wave gap solitons in optical lattices

Abstract

We study mobility and interaction of gap solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) confined by an optical lattice potential. Such localized wavepackets can exist only in the gaps of the matter-wave band-gap spectrum and their interaction properties are shown to serve as a measure of discreteness imposed onto a BEC by the lattice potential. We show that inelastic collisions of two weakly localized near-the-band-edge gap solitons provide simple and effective means for generating strongly localized in-gap solitons through soliton fusion.